"I love Bitcoin, because every upgrade that we have takes us further into the future," said Isaiah Jackson,  best-selling author of Bitcoin and Black America. He was speaking on this week's episode of the Priv8 Podcast, which features an exclusive talk between Isaiah and tech journalist Naomi Brockwell from the November 2021 Priv8 Virtual Privacy Summit.

"For instance, Taproot—which was implemented in June 2021—is a privacy-focused upgrade that gives Bitcoin users the ability to 'batch' multiple signatures into one transaction," Isaiah said. "It essentially allows you to remove the origin address of each transaction.

"I love the fact that Taproot solves privacy-related problems that we had even before widespread data surveillance and intrusive privacy laws. These problems were part of the reason why the Cypherpunk movement started in the first place. These reasons are why Bitcoin was created.

"And of course, Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 341 is coming through with Schnorr Signatures, which provide a new type of cryptographic signature for transactions. This is great for the space and shows that the development of Bitcoin is robust and continuing today."

Isaiah said that making Bitcoin more private is an important part of the financial privacy movement. "At a very basic level, the reason we need private money is that what we do with our money is personal.

"The things that private citizens do is nobody's business but their own. Public governments should have public blockchains that allow citizens to see what they're doing, and private citizens should have private money that allows them to do what they want. So we have to actually stay diligent with the privacy fight.

"We've gotten so deep into this wormhole of data surveillance, strict KYC and anti-money laundering laws that people don't even know a world where real privacy and freedom exists," Isaiah said. "We need to keep the ethos of privacy and freedom going so that people understand what the real fight is all about."

Check out the entire conversation with Isaiah here. And don't forget to subscribe to the Priv8 Podcast on your favorite streaming service.